does a hunt without violence feed anyone? does love with no bloodshed tie us together? liana 'rabbit' ada briggs / sergeant medic to the jackson settlement clinic / daughter of the enemy / lover of wolves / gentle as a bee sting / fragile like a bomb
mold was the first semblance of memory liana ever had. a fibonacci sequence of little black dots, scaling across her bedroom ceiling. one splotch, then two, then three, five, eight. on and so on, until she was unable to keep up with the continuous numbers. she loved to count them, sometimes obsessively, because it brought her comfort whereas most things could not. she liked numbers, how they grew as she did. how they were the same across every country, their elegant patterns, their hidden poetry. numbers were consistent, liana’s life was not. her parents were strident, her fellow safe zone residents were belligerent, and liana was left to her numbers. counting and counting, the mold on the walls, the mold in the people. rot augmented from within them, rampant in the streets of her home. she had a loose understanding that all safe zones were this precarious, this close to demented, but she could do little as a child but watch it decay.
liana was born into a hollow husk of an old world memory, raised among a pit of militant vipers: a shattered environment bred into existence after the cruel transition from outbreak to acclimation, hand-built by soldiers, controlled by the undeserving. brutality ruled the safe zone, flowing through the city like a polluted river — and isa briggs ruled the people, captaining a ship that was sinking. she spent most of her childhood in observation of his harshness, watching as he commanded weak-minded people, shepherding sheep to their slaughter. they served their sparse purposes with little opposition, and liana watched from a position where compliance was naturally demanded of her. she set the curve in every position, outsmarted every academic rival, outfought any challenge thrown at her combatively. groomed to be exactly who she was born as; a toy soldier, like her mother and father. It disgusted her, and she hated them for it.
when their system began to rot beneath their feet like shabby floorboards, liana was not surprised. when inspired insurgents lynched them by their throats in the townsquare, liana was finally free of their influence. the creaking of weakening rope, their shoes so neatly tied like the nooses around their necks; her final memory, and one her mind still blurs with mold. With numbers. wausau was nothing but an amber stain bleeding into the night sky when liana made her escape, nothing left but ash and fading memory. she was a child alone, barely eleven, and forced to overcome challenges greater than herself. she was given no alternative, and she was determined to defy her odds.
months of isolation fractured her mind and broke her body into lost pieces, a trial of self preservation and moral strength was the greatest test her mind was ever put to. no one left to guide her through the rocky ravines of survival, not a trusted soul alive to hold her hand through the hardships which befell her. liana counted the nights she slept, few — the things she had killed, many. if there was anything she understood about that damning loneliness, it was that. it took a stomach full of rotting buffen and blood-covered skin, but liana would be found. she would be cared for by a man who would teach her what family really meant. creed and his son were far from innocent survivors, and wherever they went, a trail of fear was sure to follow, but she loved them. they were hers. and despite the path of viscera and dogmatic survival, she was theirs too.
jackson changed her for the better, and turned a feral child with an interest in blood into a prodigy with a scalpel and blade. liana and her familial companions had gone from monstrous and ichor-stained survivors tied to fanatical traditions, to some of the highest ranked and most respected members of their close-knit community. she studied the art of healing just as she practiced her ability to harm, creating a perfect balance between life and death, and turning herself into a well-rounded powerhouse of a young woman. who she was before and who she chose to be were very similar in nature, but they were no longer the same person. she was a deadly nightshade, but she was also the antidote. liana did not help people who did not deserve it, did not kill without a cause. she, the personification of forgotten mercy.
specialized with passive combat, a natural with a staff, a beast with a steel knife — a worthy opponent to any enemy, a perfect ally to those in need. jackson revered her, her family adored her, and her friends protected her with every ounce of their lives. liana was one of the most cherished components to her community, and the glue which held her allies together. without her, corruption was bound to ensue. with her, she mended the wounds of the past with gentle hands and a bleeding heart. she had grown up, let the numbers go, cleaned the mold from her memory; now, she was a lily in the mud, and the world would not take this from her, no matter how hard it tried. she would never be lonely again, and when madness still lingered in her shattered mind, light shone through each crack. sicut lilium inter spinas. this was who she was.
